Politics & The Internet

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

Were it not for the Internet, Singaporeans across the globe would not have been rejoicing with The United States of America when Barack Obama was voted as President.
The internet has led to the rapid widespread of news that Barack Obama has been nominated President and that many Americans have their hopes placed n his shoulders.

The internet has helped Barack Obama to win this campaign. But how did he do across such a large country when he was only one person?

He used The Internet.

As we all know campaigns need money, and if you aren't filthy rich you did have to get the money from somewhere. Well, Obama used the Internet to raise small amounts of money from hundreds of thousands of people. The ability to spread such a message across to so many people in the shortest time, the use of Web 2.0 tools definitely changed Obama's campaign. Imagine every person that donates at least 2 dollars. That would have amounted to $200,000 if Obama's campaign reached 100,000 US citizens. With the use of the Internet, Obama's campaign was able to organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents in the cheapest and shortest amount of time.

The earth shaking Internet interfaces such as Youtube has provided Obama with free advertising. And as stated in my earlier posts, New Yorkers state that it is much more convenient to surf the internet. Videos online are not like television which get interuppted by advertisements, as a result, YouTube videos have proven to be a much more effective method of advertising.

To buy advertising hours on television networks cost a bomb, and why pay for it when you can do it for free online and the effect is greater. Mr Trippi, who was in charge of Howard Dean's campaign in 2004 stated: To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV s $47 million.

That's a lot of money!

YouTube does not only help the campaign in delivering uninteruppted advertisements, but also, fellow citizens are able to use YouTube to do fact-checking. The YouTube and the internet can be used to find past speeches, dirty secrets, etc and use the internet to alert others around them. The word of mouth is a very powerful tool and can either help you or bring you to the pits of hell.

The Internet also allows citizens and people across the globe to listen to the speeches on repeat mode. The more people listen to it, the more people are persuaded and convinced that Obama is the man for the seat in the White House. According to Mr. Huffington of the Huffington Post, 6.7 million people have watched Mr Obama's speech about race on YouTube.



Adding on, the Internet allows Obama to make connections with the people and strengthens it as well. The way most of the population in America communicates using the Internet, and by connecting with them via the way that is most convenient to them and the way they most care about, Obama could easily talk to the people of America with no worry. It's kind of like establishing a common interest/mode of communication.

Soon enough Obama will start a website by the name of MyWhiteHouse.gov to talk to his fellow Americans about issues that the country is and will face in time to come.

As you can see, the Internet has definitely shaped Politics. Barack Obama won the campaign and is now the President of the United States of America. The use of the internet to reach so many thousands of people has played a huge role in his winning of this Presidency.

Let us hope Obama will continue to use the internet to stay connected with his fellow citizens and of course, the World as well.

How Does Internet Shape the future of Journalism

Wikipedia defines Journalism as the craft of conveying news, descriptive material and comment via a widening spectrum of media.
Throughout the past till today, newspapers have been the main medium of journalism, conveying news and information all across the country.However, recently, the internet is slowly taking over the role of newspapers and newspapers are no longer the cash cows that they used to be in the past. More and more readers are turning to the internet for their news.



A reason for this is because when one is online, you are not confined to just one point of view the newspaper presents you. Instead, you are able to browse around other sites and see what different online news papers have to say about a particular issue. Furthermore, New Yorkers stated that it is much more convenient to sit in front of a screen than to buy a paper and read it cover to cover.

Of course, with the increase in online news reporting, the traditional newspapers lose out as the explosive of videos allows readers to directly connect with the issue both mentally and visually. The traditional newspaper of course requires a bit of imagination. Also, studies of the past will be much easier as online interfaces allow readers to go back and forth as and when they like; they don't have to worry about missing last wednesday's paper because they know it will be available online.

However, with the rapid growth on online newspapers, there are ethical concerns. The internet is a virtual world where any point of view or comment can be posted, as a result, there has to be a standard that online newspapers have to follow. Blogs, MySpace, WordPress, opens a new door to journalism as well. People across the globe can give their point of view and comments about an issue at any point in time.

But these views have to be objective and disciplined. Traditional newspapers practise disciplined verification and editing as it will go public, but online, there is no one editor who will screen through the entire webpage to look for errors or any damning piece of information.

The future of journalism is bright thanks to all the new frontiers available on the internet. But at the same time, humans are able to connect more with the traditional piece of paper as we are not void of emotions.

As Patrick Dixion of www.globalchange.com said: Paper becomes part of human beings as compared to a piece of writing on a computer screen.

I love Multimedia

Wouldn't you agree with me that the use of multimedia has made the internet so much more enticing and interesting? Multimedia makes use of text, animations, audio and still images to appeal to its targeted audience. The use of multimedia has been adopted vastly across the virtual world; be it appealing to a gaming audience to an audience of photographers.

This is Audition; an online game by Asiasoft. I've been playing this game for quite awhile now. Its homepage spells Multimedia all over. From the background to the various banners at the side which allows you to either sign up with Asiasoft or download the game client.

Audition's homepage allows you to view videos of players playing online and there are screen shots available as well. The use of videos and still pictures further enhances the webpage and not to mention adds to help persuade you to play the game.

Since Audition is a game that incorporates dance moves, there's definitely got to be music. To further persuade you to play, a sample of songs are readily available for you to listen to as show above!

But what really makes this website a successful website? The multimedia plays a huge part in it and the ability to add so many perks to it definitely sends its message out loud and clear. However, another important aspect of multimedia plays a part too. And that aspect is: Hypermedia

Hypermedia is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext in which graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. This way, Asiasoft is able to link up as many pages as it wants to to its homepage instead of cramming all the information they want to convey to the targeted audience.

Take instance the screen shot above. Just by placing my mouse over the word "Info", a whole list of options pop out. "News. Notice. Events. Characters. Stag. Arena. Level."

Well, as you can see, Asiasoft fully utilizes multimedia to its full potential. Multimedia isn't just on homepages; Multimedia is Everywhere. From blogs to television to games to even advertisements. The tool of multimedia is simple awesome.

What will we ever do without Multimedia?

Our lives did be dead boring.

Computer Viruses

Viruses are everywhere; germs, dirt, bacteria can be harmful to a human body.
But, all the above stated can be harmful to computers as well. Computer viruses are harmful and expensive to repair for all computer users. Viruses can strike at any time without warning. A virus can enter your computer either by an email or a program you have downloaded.

Common viruses are the Trojan, Worms, Spyware and Keylogger.

These are the viruses that are commonly seen in computers/laptops such as Acer, HP, VAIO etc. Such viruses attack the masses; but there is one particular brand of computers that seldom gets attacked by viruses, but with such an advantage, the possibility of getting rid of a virus will also be very challenging.

It is the iMAC by Apple.

The IMAC's unique design prevents common viruses from attacking it, which is good. However, there is a certain virus that caught my eye when I was doing research, this virus is called:

The Newton virus

The "Newton Virus" was aamed after the father of modern mechanics. The 'Newton Virus' introduces the concept of gravity causing your desktop to behave exactly as it would in the real physical environment. Desktop icons become susceptible to Newton’s invisible force and fall, roll and tumble in whatever direction gravity pulls them delivering a little bit of reality to your virtual environment.

Viruses that are being spread by thumb drives are extremely potent. I was a victim of it once. A friend of mine passed me a thumb drive to retrieve information, but I did not know that her thumb drive was infected. As a result, my laptop had to be reformatted and I lost a lot of precious data. As I did not know that my computer was infected, I plugged in my Ipod to update my songs and before I knew it, even my Ipod was infected. The virus destroyed my Ipod and I could never ever plug it into my laptop again as the virus is still swimming in there.

It was seriously tramuatizing :(

Back to the Newton Virus, the Newton Virus isn't a harmful virus according the its creators. It adds a spice of life to the virgin territory of viruses that can be found in an iMAC. As silly as it sounds, this virus was the first virus created to poke fun at iMac users. But I suppose after awhile, the virus will become annoying. Sooner of later, more viruses will emerge just for the iMAC.

As the old saying goes, "prevention is better than cure"
Get an anti virus NOW. :D